To be fair (as a Samsung Android and MacBook user), so do nearly all phones altogether. On a computer, you can just install Linux to have a Microsoft/Google/Apple-free OS. But nearly all smartphones run Android (if not iOS).
I guess then that we need more Linux phone development.
You can (on most Android phones) run an Android fork that doesn’t have Google services running and gets software and updates from elsewhere, e.g. GrapheneOS. Can’t do that with an iPhone. I get that you’re still ultimately dependent on Google to continue Android development and make security updates, but it’s way less of a dependency. And yes, GNU-ish Linux on phones would be awesome.
Yes and no. You need an unlocked or unlockable bootloader, which is becoming more and more difficult to find. So you’ll need speciality manufacturers, or ones with that feature. For example, in the US, Samsung has had locked bootloaders on all its phones since the Galaxy S7.
Obviously your point is correct (e.g. I have an older, but usable OnePlus 6 with an unlocked bootloader). You just need to be more deliberate when choosing a phone and keeping all of this in mind.
For example, in the US, Samsung has had locked bootloaders on all its phones since the Galaxy S7.
Yikes. While shopping for a new phone last year I was under the impression that at least in the European market they still allow you to unlock the bootloader, even on the latest models. The catch is that there’s pretty much no third-party Android distros that work with the phones, because they don’t release drivers or kernel patches and people have to scrape them from first-party OS images, which sounds horrible.
You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: [email protected]
This is the official technology community of Lemmy.ml for all news related to creation and use of technology, and to facilitate civil, meaningful discussion around it.
Ask in DM before posting product reviews or ads. All such posts otherwise are subject to removal.
Rules:
1: All Lemmy rules apply
2: Do not post low effort posts
3: NEVER post naziped*gore stuff
4: Always post article URLs or their archived version URLs as sources, NOT screenshots. Help the blind users.
5: personal rants of Big Tech CEOs like Elon Musk are unwelcome (does not include posts about their companies affecting wide range of people)
6: no advertisement posts unless verified as legitimate and non-exploitative/non-consumerist
7: crypto related posts, unless essential, are disallowed
To be fair (as a Samsung Android and MacBook user), so do nearly all phones altogether. On a computer, you can just install Linux to have a Microsoft/Google/Apple-free OS. But nearly all smartphones run Android (if not iOS).
I guess then that we need more Linux phone development.
You can (on most Android phones) run an Android fork that doesn’t have Google services running and gets software and updates from elsewhere, e.g. GrapheneOS. Can’t do that with an iPhone. I get that you’re still ultimately dependent on Google to continue Android development and make security updates, but it’s way less of a dependency. And yes, GNU-ish Linux on phones would be awesome.
Yes and no. You need an unlocked or unlockable bootloader, which is becoming more and more difficult to find. So you’ll need speciality manufacturers, or ones with that feature. For example, in the US, Samsung has had locked bootloaders on all its phones since the Galaxy S7.
Obviously your point is correct (e.g. I have an older, but usable OnePlus 6 with an unlocked bootloader). You just need to be more deliberate when choosing a phone and keeping all of this in mind.
Yikes. While shopping for a new phone last year I was under the impression that at least in the European market they still allow you to unlock the bootloader, even on the latest models. The catch is that there’s pretty much no third-party Android distros that work with the phones, because they don’t release drivers or kernel patches and people have to scrape them from first-party OS images, which sounds horrible.